Volume One: unIndian songs

Anticon; 2005

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As Anticon enters its eighth year, the experimental hip-hop collective's station in the annals of music remains unclear. Will Anticon be a parenthetical digression or a chapter in rap's overarching narrative? And can a movement sparked by a group of white kids find lasting purchase in the traditionally black medium of hip-hop?

Until Anticon's historical context is resolved, when the winners have been crowned and start writing memoirs, these questions will remain open. While we bandy around terms like "terrorist" with careless conviction, that designation is history's, not ours, to assign: George Washington, had his revolution failed, might well be remembered as a terrorist; if the Palestinians succeed in ousting the Israelites from their territories, no number of despicable acts will prevent them from going on the books as freedom fighters.

While it seems bizarre to conflate the histories of hip-hop and social violence, that's just what Pedestrian does on his debut LP. Volume One: unIndian songs finds him wandering through a sonic and thematic chronicle of hip-hop and the greater historical context from which it emanates, spanning the gap between old school line-swapping and modern Dirty South crunk; between canned, cracking 80s drums and folk music collage; between the cultural criticism of Public Enemy and Anticon's esoteric navel gazing; between Sage Francis and Woody Guthrie and Ice T and Sole.

As such, the album is fractured, coded, shadowy, protean, and strange. Pedestrian's sulfurous meditations on death fill the gaps between songs as diverse as "O Hosanna", a Run DMC-style party joint flecked with Nas samples and a gospel choir, and the critique of economic violence "Lifelong Liquidation Sale (1850-1950)", which is cloven into two parts-- the first, a buzzing hive of sinister electric guitar and stuttering vocals; the second, a placid dronescape that evokes the barren horizons and kaleidoscopic mutations of cLOUDDEAD. And standout track "O Silent Bed" is an undie-hop take on Nelly's lilting sing-song and catchy choruses-- Anticon's first certified club banger.

The formerly nonexistent borders around Anticon's sensibility are showing signs of ossification. The off-key singing, chaotic clutter, confessional/intellectual lyrics, and willful obscurity that dominate Pedestrian's debut by now have a whiff of the rote. But as Anticon releases become more predictable, they advance in ambition and coherence of vision, and it's easy to fantasize about an album that perfectly distills the Anticon aesthetic.

If one were awaiting this theoretical messiah record, one might expectantly look to this long-awaited LP from Anticon's co-founder and spiritual mentor. With its thematic ambition, fragmentary mien, and cameos from Doseone, why?, Sole, Jel, and others, Volume One: unIndian Songs is the consummate Anticon record in terms of its components. But a large part of Anticon's appeal has been its capacity to surprise, and while Pedestrian's record befuddles, proselytizes, and fascinates, it rarely strays from the established palette. While unIndian songs is a beguiling piece of cultural lore, it further cements what Anticon is, not what it could be, and so this mythical, pure articulation of Anticon potential either already exists and will be acknowledged in the final tally (Them's debut? cLOUDDEAD's Ten?), or shimmers tantalizingly over the next ridge.